


Alone and Holding

by LizBee



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: F/M, Murder Parents, and dog-sitters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizBee/pseuds/LizBee
Summary: Earth is no longer safe; maybe it never was. Still, Laris feels the loss.
Relationships: Laris/Zhaban
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	Alone and Holding

**Author's Note:**

> Titles are hard; this one is nicked from Dessa's "Warsaw". Given sufficient time, I'll definitely come up with a use for "And I'm bare-faced at your masquerade".
> 
> Thanks to NonElvis and Aristofranes for beta-reading and hand-holding.

Tal Shiar training had gifted Laris with an eidetic memory, but synthesising that information was more difficult, and she was out of practice. Something nagged at her as she and Zhaban dealt with the mess left by their attackers, but she couldn't yet identify the problem.

"Kind of the Tal Shiar to make it easy to dispose of the bodies," Zhaban said. 

"The Zhat Vash, you mean." 

"Romulan death squads are operating on Earth. I don't think it matters what they call themselves."

Laris watched as the corpses dissolved in a green mist. It was faintly obscene to do this in the admiral's study -- the violation of a sanctuary -- but this room had already seen violence, and it was better to confine the evidence to one room. 

Pragmatism was another skill the Tal Shiar taught, although Laris had already mastered it by the time she was recruited. 

She considered the array of tools she had taken from their attackers' bodies. Weapons. Lifesign suppressants. An antilepton distributor. 

"Is that safe?" Zhaban asked, watching Laris's hand close around it.

"Nothing is safe," she said in Romulan. "Thirty seconds will leave our cells intact. Probably." She gave him a smile she didn't feel. "Shall we live dangerously?"

With the biological evidence and molecular record erased, they turned to the weapons. 

"New power packs," Laris pointed out. "Less prone to overload." 

"Which faction has resources for innovation?" Zhaban wondered. "The Free State?"

"You were right. It doesn't matter who they are." 

Laris sank slowly onto the couch, disruptor in hand, and gestured for Zhaban to join her. He put one arm around her shoulders, keeping his weapon in his other hand. Number One whined at the door, but neither moved to let him in. 

"Such loyalty," Zhaban murmured into her hair. 

They had grown up loyal. Patriotic. Firm believers in their duty to the Romulan Star Empire and its people. And the state had tested that loyalty, over and over again, until finally it broke. 

Laris closed her eyes.

The admiral's old-fashioned chronometer chimed one. Then two. 

They didn't sleep. 

The Tal Shiar liked to come for its victims in the early hours, when people were sleepy and vulnerable. She had participated in more than a few raids in her time. And the interrogations that followed.

Interrogations. Weapons. What was the thought hovering on the edge of her consciousness? 

A little after three, she stretched and admitted, "After all these years, I thought we were safe. We have neighbours. People know us." 

"Yes," said Zhaban, "everyone likes the friendly Romulans who buy their produce and praise their lovely children." He adjusted his grip on the disruptor and brought up the feed from the hastily-repaired security net. "Maybe we should do more."

Laris raised her eyebrows. "Shall we join a book club?"

"Or start one."

The thought of people -- strangers -- in the house was unpleasant. It had taken long enough to get used to sharing a home with the admiral. 

"How much," she said, "do we need to give up to belong here?"

"Everything. We knew that." 

They hadn't had a choice about joining the Tal Shiar. Not really. Zhaban had been raised to it; Laris had been recruited from university, and refusing was not a viable option.

But they had chosen to leave. And the consequences of that choice.

Still. She had grown accustomed to feeling safe. To big windows and an alien sun. To grapes and Irish breakfast tea. 

Zhaban said, "Should we run?"

"Where? This is the safest world in the Federation." 

"Vulcan? Bajor?" He tapped her nose. "I know enough prayers to pass for a vedek." 

Laris smiled in the dark. "You'd look very pretty with round ears."

"We could take the dog." 

"Oh yes. They'll never spot us."

They would stay, she knew. She could betray her people more easily than she could betray the admiral's trust. He had opened his home to them, given them a piece of his heritage. Romulans valued family, and Picard was hers, even if he didn't quite know it. 

If the Tal Shiar -- if anyone -- came for them, she wouldn't hesitate to defend her family.

Dawn arrived, and no one came. 

"Is it possible," said Zhaban, opening the door, "that we're not all that important?"

"There's no need to sound so disappointed," Laris told him. 

She opened the door to let Number One in -- he sniffed in confusion at the forensically wiped study, and whined for his master -- and thought about making a pot of tea. 

In Dublin, where she had spent her first days on Earth being politely debriefed by Starfleet Intelligence, black, sweet tea had been regarded as a cure for all ills. She had considered it a mark of Earth softness, proof that there were no serious problems on this world. Too late, she had discovered the caffeine was addictive, and after that, she stopped underestimating the humans.

She heard Zhaban's footsteps outside, and knew what it was she had been trying to put together.

"First thing," said Zhaban, coming through the door, "we need to upgrade the security--" He stopped, seeing the look on Laris's face. "What?"

"The girl," she said. "Dr Jurati. How did she get a disruptor?"

Zhaban paled. He pulled a tricorder from the admiral's desk, and Laris followed him outside to see the results. 

But she didn't need to be told. There was no sign of a dead Romulan. No sign of violence out here at all. 

"It was left for her," he said. "But she seemed sincere--"

"The Vulcan." 

They had grown up with the propaganda about sinister Vulcan mind control. Laris had met Vulcans; even liked them, occasionally. But sometimes propaganda contained a seed of truth.

"We need to warn the admiral," Zhaban said. 

"Write a note," Laris told him. His French was better than hers. "By hand, on paper." 

She looked about the study. The doctor had examined a book on her first visit. The Asimov. Artificial life, of course. The bookshelves had been damaged in the fight, but the book itself was intact. She arranged it on the admiral's desk, sitting open. 

It needed more. 

In the kitchen, she replicated herself some tea, then set about recreating a piece of jewellery from memory. Silver. Interlaced rings. She couldn't recall its details down to the millimetre, but the admiral would recognise it. 

Zhaban was slipping the note between the pages of the Asimov when she returned. Laris set the necklace on top, letting it catch the light. 

"We need to clear up the mess," Zhaban said. "It would look strange, sending a scan when it looks like this. Do you think the danger is immediate?"

"No," said Laris. It was a guess, but one based on experience. "She'll--" she meant Commodore Oh -- "watch him at first. We can afford a day." 

Time to tidy. To upgrade the security system, to find hiding places for the weapons they had appropriated. To take a long walk through the village, being ever so harmless. 

Time to resume training. The illusion of safety had made them soft. 

"A cloaked training ground," she said out loud. 

"Don't want to scare the natives," Zhaban agreed. "Or give ourselves away. Target shooting?"

"And sparring. Don't think I didn't see you hit a man over the head with a bottle of wine last night." 

"I used the nearest weapon I had to hand," said Zhaban with dignity, "and I was panicking." 

In their old life, he would never have admitted that. Laris felt some of her anxiety ease: they were in danger, they were killers again, but they weren't monsters, and they could choose not to be. 

She wrapped her arms around his waist and drew him close. 

"It's a pity," she said. "I enjoyed pretending to be--" She couldn't finish. 

"We weren't pretending," Zhaban murmured.

"I know." 

They had told themselves, once, that any action was justified if it protected the Romulan state. Now, resting her head on her husband's shoulder, she knew she could be that person again. Not for a state, but for her home, her family. 

"Nothing is safe," she whispered, "except this." 

And she drew away from Zhaban and went to feed the dog, and prepare breakfast, and draw up plans for a concealed disruptor range.

_end_


End file.
